Film News

De Niro Making A Sequel To Midnight Run

09 March 2010 | 0 comments

It's often difficult not to wonder if Robert De Niro realises the slide in quality of his films over the last few years. When Meet the Parents is considered your best film in well over a decade, then frankly it's time to up that quality control. The legendary actor has decided that he's revisiting one of his mildly lesser known classics, Midnight Run.

Genuinely one of the best films of the 80's, it paired De Niro with a sardonic Charles Grodin, and saw the pair play a bounty hunter and the man he's tasked with finding and bringing back to the mobster he stole from. Classic lines like "I've got three words for ya, shut the f**k up" and a perfect balance of humour, action and brilliant performances made it instantly rewatchable. Well, being that it wasn't a huge financial success on its initial release, De Niro is now moving ahead with a sequel. Role Models scripter Timothy Dowling will pen the first draft, while original director Martin Brest may still come back.

De Niro's surly bounty hunter will be paired with a younger guy this time out, but hopefully they'll find room for an appearance from Grodin - he's excellent in the first one. I can see Justin Long being linked with the younger guy part already. Personally, I'd love to see someone like Ryan Gosling share buckets of screentime with him. 

Cast To Come Back For Paranormal Activity 2?

09 March 2010 | 0 comments

It looks like the Paranormal Activity 2 sequel that is to be strangely directed by either Brian De Palma, Brad Anderson or Greg McLean, will see the original cast come back in some capacity.

Micah Sloat from the first film has been spewing to MTV and kept using the term "we", indicating that his ill-fated boyfriend could be making an appearance: "All I can tell you is that I'm very excited for the project," Sloat said. "It's really cool. It's gonna be really interesting, and it's not going to suck, which most horror sequels you would imagine would." He then added, "We have money now, but we're staying true to the heart of the movie, to the spirit of it and to the vision."

Could just be wishful thinking on Sloat's part, and there was no mention on if Katie Featherston would be coming back. Flashbacks maybe? Or folks watching some "unseen" footage from before? Either way a sequel is intriguing.

And The Oscar Goes To...

08 March 2010 | 0 comments

Best Film: The Hurt Locker

Best Director: Katherine Bigelow - The Hurt Locker

Best Actor: Jeff Bridges - A Crazy Heart

Best Actress: Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz - Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique - Precious

Best Adapted Screenplay: Geoffrey Fletcher - Precious

Best Original Screenplay: Mark Boal - The Hurt Locker

For the full list click here!

Oscar Winners As Predictable As The Bland Ceremony

08 March 2010 | 0 comments

So it’s just past half five in the morning and I’m just mulling over a fairly static 82nd Academy Awards. Not the winners - it was always going to be a toss-up between The Hurt Locker and Avatar for Best Picture/Director - but more the general banality of the actual ceremony. After the musical shenanigans of last year, 2010 was a much more genial affair, with hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin playing it awfully safe for its entirety. What happened to offending people like David Letterman and Chris Rock? That was FUNNY, is it not the point to be entertained here? Baldwin did a particularly unspectacular job; not really pulling in many laughs, but not messing up either - probably exactly what broadcasting network ABC wanted.

As for the award winners, well, I'd seen them all coming, with the exception of the Best Adapted Screenplay, which went to Precious - when it should have gone to Up In The Air or In The Loop. Mo’nique deservedly picked up her expected Best Supporting Actress gong, but that was the strong point of that film for me - the performances. The script, a thiny veiled triumph over human adversity story, is also needlessly excessive at points and sometimes, yes, even clichéd. Wins for Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock also aligned with the masses intuition of the past few weeks, while Christoph Waltz was even more of a dead certainty from day one. We all knew this watching, which made the only real excitement that of the two horse race between Avatar and The Hurt Locker.

The Academy knew they were making history by naming Katherine Bigelow as Best Director, while her nearest rival and ex-husband, James Cameron had publically stated he felt she should win. So she did, making The Hurt Locker the lowest grossing Best Picture winner in history, with a box office total of about $19 million worldwide, compared to Avatar’s $2.5 billion and counting. It is a genuinely cracking film, and it deserves the praise that is being heaped upon it, but its success can’t hide the fact that it was a shoddy year for Oscar in general, and the ceremony reflected that. Hopefully we’ll see guys like Conan O Brien, David Letterman or Jon Stewart next year; y’know, people who already do this sort of thing for a living anyway.

For a full list of winners, click here.

Police Academy Gets A Reboot

05 March 2010 | 0 comments

You didn't ask for it, and probably could care less; but someone somewhere thinks a remake of Police Academy is a very good idea.

Paul Maslansky, an original producer from the series spewed to The Hollywood Reporter: "It's going to be very worthwhile to the people who remember it and to those who saw it on TV. It's going to be a new class. We hope to discover new talent and season it with great comedians. It'll be anything but another movie with a numeral next to it. And we'll most probably retain the wonderful musical theme."

Well, once you retain the wonderful music theme... Seriously though, if Steve Guttenberg doesn't come back I'm assembling a mob.